Burn Out on Light Bulbs

[Todd Willhoit]

Oh how I sometimes long for the days where one bought bulbs from the store and they worked. Thoughts of color temperature, CRI, suitable dimmers, or physical orientation never entered the mind. Bulbs just worked, in any fixture, with any dimmer, until they went out in a flash of glory!

With that said, I have been using 3500K Ecosmart CFLs from Home Depot. Reasonably priced, acceptable color for our preferences, and a good (claimed!) life expectancy. Despite the base-up orientation depicted on the packaging, the life expectancy suffers greatly. I installed two dozen last fall and have several failures - three in the last two weeks.

I bought two overpriced CREE 4Flow bulbs to compare the 2700K soft white and 5000K daylight with our existing CFLs. The soft whites are too yellow and the daylights are too blue. I had Sylvania 5,000K full spectrum (90CRI) fluorescent tubes in my last garage and they were great. It seems like all of the new specs are essentially meaningless, or at least less than helpful when trying to match bulbs

So, what is your method for choosing bulbs? How do you find a bulb that doesn't make your ultra white ceiling paint look yellow or blue, or fail in six months with the base up?

[Brian Elfert]

I have a combination of Cree, Philips, and GE LED light bulbs in my house. They are all soft white and I don't have any color rendition issues with any of them. I have six of the Cree 4Flow bulbs with no issues.

I renovated the house last year and went 100% LED bulbs in the house except a few rarely used bulbs in the basement that will get LED if they burn out. No more CFLs except some in the detached garage that will also get LED if/when they burn out. My electric bill is quite low, but I have no idea how much the LED lighting helps on that.

[Larry Frank]

I have started saving the packaging and receipts for the LED bulbs as they do not last as long as described. They are too expensive to just throw away. I will start making warranty claims.

It seems the new bulbs last do not last any where near as long as advertised.

[Lee Schierer]

You have to read the packaging and lamp base carefully to determine if the bulb is suitable for a base up application. Most bulbs that don't say okay for base up aren't good for that use and will fail early.

Also many companies are betting most people won't keep track of the actual use life nor will they keep the receipt.

Let use know how your warranty claims work out.

[Curt Harms]

We have CFLs that have been in service for several years. They were purchased when CFLs were pretty expensive, I wonder if the newer cheaper lamps are cheap for a reason. We bought a bunch of '60 watt' Cree when the local utility was doing a promo with Home Depot. We're happy with the light quality. I wonder if there's another factor in CFL longevity -- how many power cycles/day. I've replaced several fluorescent tubes in the basement after a couple years in service. They can get turned on/off several times/day. That should be an area where LED wins. LED (pulse width modulation) dimmers work - or at least used to work - by turning the LEDs on and off several times per second, too quickly for the human eye to detect. If LEDs will stand up to that to years, they should stand several power cycles/day without a problem.

[glenn bradley]

We have CFLs that have been in service for several years. They were purchased when CFLs were pretty expensive, I wonder if the newer cheaper lamps are cheap for a reason.

It seems it is even the ones that aren't cheap. This adds unfortunate credence to my feeling that we have created an environment where it is difficult to get quality merchandise no matter how much you are willing to pay. The curly bulbs I put in over 10 years ago are all still going; stem up, stem down, ceiling fan vibration, motion sensing areas . . . . Ones I bought a few years ago as I finally got around to replacing other "standard" bulbs have been replaced a few times. No brand or price point seems to be able to deliver a quality CFL at this point. Thank goodness I prefer blinding 6500k T-8's in the shop ;-) However, I hadn't replaced a single lamp in nearly 7 years and have gone through a case in the last 3 ;-(

[Brian Elfert]

Mythbusters did a test of light bulbs some years back where they switched bulbs on and off up to something like 10,000 cycles. They tested a regular bulb, a CFL, and an LED bulb. The LED bulb was the only one still working after 10,000 cycles. It could take many years before I see how long my LED bulbs last. Six months without failure so far. I have no idea if they will really last 20 years or not.

You will still be able to get regular light bulbs for a while yet. You just have to buy rough service bulbs that are exempt from the new rules.

[Todd Willhoit]

The EcoSmart CFLs I have show base-up on the box, yet still fail in that orientation in our vanity lights. The seem to survive in the ceiling fans however. I too, agree that the older CFLs last longer than the newer ones.

The other part of the conundrum is the color. It seems that the actual perceived color may vary considerably for bulbs of the same color temperature, but from different manufacturers. How are you guys finding the "neutral" colors"

[Rick Potter]

I guess I have had good luck with flourescents. My shop has all T-8's (64of them), which were put it over 8 years ago, and none has failed. The house has well over 100 CFL 13 watt bulbs, most of which are almost 10 years old, and we have replaced about a dozen. These are so cheap at Costco when they have a special on them, 8 for $3, that I have a really good supply of them, and am in no hurry to go to LED's. It would make no economic sense for me.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

I'm personally ecstatic that I can now walk into a store and see a whole isle of $15 lightbulbs. Why on earth would I spend $15 on a lightbulb for a rental building??? Are we supposed to take our lightbulbs when we move now? I think I'll have to get a couple pelican cases made up for them.

Oh, and the softstart feature on the CFL's is awesome. I love how the bathroom gets bright enough to see just as I'm done in there. Every time I replace one in there at about 10% of the hours it said it would last, I think this next bulb will be better. There was the one that made the whole family look like we need more oxygen in our blood, that was cool, the one that melted the base because it was supposed to only be mounted base down, and stupid me didn't, and the one that broke into a bazillion little pieces when it was being installed.

I'm personally SO thankful that the days of the evil incandescent are only a bad memory now. I really do prefer this new era where lightbulbs have once again become as much effort as they should be. That century of complacence that was the era of incandescent led to a lack of appreciation of how our cave dwelling ancestors struggled to light their homes. It's good to be reconnected with our roots.

I am now off to take advantage of a Memorial Day sale to buy a gross of 10,000 hour super bulbs for the bathroom fixture. They are on sale today for $14.99 each, and I think a gross will get us to next Memorial Day. This could be expensive if we didn't switch to big LED fixtures for the rest of the house. Who knew those flat screens would become the best light of this era!

[Mike Phillips]

I was never able to get used to CFLs for the same reasons that Steve mentions. The Cree LED bulbs are a different matter. Almost every incandescent bulb in my home has been replaced by a Cree 60W LED, and they are working very well. The color is accurate. They were on sale for $4.97 each at Home Depot, so I stocked up. By the way, you have to check Home Depot locations for the sale price. Not every store has the same pricing on these bulbs.

One interesting characteristic of LED bulbs is that they turn on so quickly that you can actually see the switch bounce from the light switch. A switch that bounces a lot should probably be replaced for good measure.

[Alan Rutherford]

It's not news that CFL's and other fluorescents don't handle on-off cycles well. It's too bad CFL's came along when they did because LED's are superior in so many ways. It's going to be tough to collect on the LED warranty though unless it fails completely. They get dimmer with use and "failure" is when light output has fallen by 20% (IIRC). Even if you can find the receipt it's going to be tough to convince the store how much output has fallen. That's if you even notice.

The technology is still rapidly evolving. I think we'll be happy with where it goes but it's not there yet.

[Mark Blatter]

"I love how the bathroom gets bright enough to see just as I'm done in there."

Completely agree Steve. I used to have the CFCs in the lamps on my nightstands, but just about the time they reached full bright, we were leaving the room or turning them off to go to sleep. I finally replaced them with old incandescent bulbs.

An interesting note on LEDs. We are slowing replacing the hold halogen bulbs in our stores at work. One side effect that we had not considered is that many of our stores, in-line stores in malls, have A/C, but no heat. Never needed it. Now we we know why. The halogen lights gave off enough heat that the stores stayed warm. Now some locations are fighting with 65 - 68 degree temps. So, do we add heat, at a cost of $3000 - 5000 per store, or go back to halogen lights? There is seldom a pain free way to reduce costs.

[Curt Harms]

The halogen lights gave off enough heat that the stores stayed warm. Now some locations are fighting with 65 - 68 degree temps. So, do we add heat, at a cost of $3000 - 5000 per store, or go back to halogen lights? There is seldom a pain free way to reduce costs.

True about halogen lamps being fine heaters. We had xenon puck lights under kitchen cabinets. One cabinet that had one puck light was where SWMBO had her chocolate stash. The cabinet bottom would get warm enough to soften the chocolate. Halogen lights HAD to go!!! We replaced the halogen with warm white LEDs-on-a-tape. We really like the even illumination and super low power consumption.

[Matt Meiser]

We've converted our new house to almost entirely LED. Some 4' florescent in the garage and basement, some motion light we barely use, and the chandelier in the foyer (which has 18 small bulbs) aren't converted. I love them. Ours are almost all Feit from Costco.